Recovery

Today: 3.0 miles
Week: 3.0 miles
February: 13.72 miles
2010: 91.79 miles

I know I could have taken today off without any guilt whatsoever, but I was so pumped from yesterday, I couldn’t wait to get out there and do a recovery run.

On my usual boring straight-out-and-back runs, I walk down to the corner, take a left and start running. Less than a block up on the right is an entrance to a trail that I used to run on last fall. Since the clocks changed in October, it’s just been too dark to run in there. But this morning, there was actually a touch of light in the sky. I looked down the trail entrance and could actually see stuff. I thought about it for a few seconds, and then turned back and hit the trail. What a fantastic change of scenery. It’s not super wilderness. In most sections, the trail separates the back yards of the houses on the left and right. But in a few spots it drops off on one side to some real woods. Anyway, there’s trees and rocks and dirt and wildlife instead of asphalt and concrete and cars and traffic lights. There were some pretty icy spots, but in most cases there was also enough open space beside the ice to keep running, and in the worst places, there had been enough foot traffic over the ice to give it enough texture to run on. I was going pretty slow anyway.

The trail only goes in about one mile before dead ending at a big set of steep wooden steps. From there I ran along a back road for a half a mile, then turned back and took the path home. There was a deer crossing road sign at the point where I turned back. I didn’t know we had any of those signs in Wellesley. I have seen deer a few blocks from my house, and my wife saw one in our back yard, but I didn’t know there were enough to warrant their own signage.

So far feeling pretty good after the race. Right calf is calming down. Left quads might be starting to act up a bit again, and left hip was a bit stiff. I did a bit of foam rolling after the run and will try to stretch throughout the day today.